Teachers Writeslice of life

Kate Messner hosts Tuesday Quick Write here.          Slice of Life Challenge Please join the challenge over at Two Writing Teachers!

Today’s quick write assignment is to choose a memory from childhood that has a deeply felt emotion connected to it.  We can fictionalize it a lot or a little, so here goes!

The little girl sat in the classroom alone as the rest of the kindergarteners and their teacher gathered in an anteroom for music class.  She was a talkative child and had spoken out of turn. This was her punishment. Singled out and ostracized, she sat at her desk straining to hear the tinkling of the triangle, the bells ringing, and children singing.

At first, she felt embarrassed, a rush of heat rising from her chest to the tips of her red hot ears when the teacher announced, “Lynnie, you may sit right here until you can behave like a proper young lady.” As she continued to sit in the cold and empty classroom, her embarrassment slowly transformed first to indignation, then finally to rebellious anger. What exactly had she done that was so bad?  Why was she being excluded? What were her classmates thinking about her? Would she forever be marked as a bad girl?

“Well, if this is the way it’s going to be, then I just want to go home!” Lynnie silently fumed, seething with righteousness. So, Lynnie reached back where her prized hand-stitched leopard print coat hung on the back of her chair and shrugged it on. 

“Lynnie!  Are you ready to join the class for music now?” Mrs. Hankins demanded peering through the doorway into the classroom.  “Lynnie, why do you have your coat on?”

“Uh, oh!” panicked Lynnie.  “I’m going home!” she declared.  After all, it was too late to back down now.

“We’ll see what Principal Robinson has to say about that!”

As Lynnie stared up at a towering Principal Robinson, she felt no fear, embarrassment or anger.  It had all melted away.  Even at a mere five years old, she recognized a teacher’s over-reaction when she saw it.